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Ask HN: How can I recover and run my old mobile game from the 2010s?

56 points diasks2 | 2 comments | 25 Aug 25 06:41 UTC | HN request time: 0.21s | source

I developed a game called "Putter King Adventure Golf" for iOS and Android back in the 2010s. It's long since disappeared from the app stores, but my son recently asked if he could play it, which got me thinking about whether it might be recoverable.

I'm wondering if there's any way to find a copy of it somewhere on the web (I assume it was probably pirated at some point during its lifetime). And if I could find it, what would be the best approach to get it running again?

Has anyone here successfully recovered and revived their old mobile apps? I'd appreciate any suggestions on:

* Where to look for archived APKs or IPAs * How to sideload/run old mobile apps on modern devices * Whether emulators might be a viable option

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fastball ◴[26 Aug 25 13:29 UTC] No.45026276[source]▶
Where did the source code go?

I have all the code from dumb little games I made (and never released) from almost 20 years ago.

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mrweasel ◴[26 Aug 25 13:51 UTC] No.45026567[source]▶
I've lost so much code, photos and other digital assets over the years. I regret losing most of it, yet I can seem to get started on archiving the things I care about.

So many funny little project, so much code I'd like to revisit, so many photos lot.

Any recommendations on how to start a life as a digital hoarder?

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1. nemothekid ◴[26 Aug 25 15:38 UTC] No.45028052[source]▶
I’ve always found that the default hacker advice is was a bit too complex for my taste. If I’m someone who hardly cares about archiving things - I’m not suddenly going to care about setting up a NAS/Ceph/Backblaze/S3.

The lowest friction tool for me for nearly a decade now has just been iCloud. It helps that I use Apple products everywhere (and I even have iCloud installed on my windows machine), but I just default to storing things in iCloud.

Searching is not the best but I’m confident the files are there

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2. kevin_thibedeau ◴[26 Aug 25 16:21 UTC] No.45028680[source]▶
You can just plug in a USB3 SSD. The key is to have something easily transferred between machines as they are replaced. Then you just need discipline to keep everything important on that storage.